Plantsy
Medium: electronics, cardboard, Legos
Tools: Arduino IDE, Raspberry Pi Pico, Lego Power Functions
Team: Jan Virsunen
About
The goal of this project was to demonstrate a way robots could be a neutral good for the world, and to provoke thoughts about the environment, the future of technology, and its place in a time like no other. The original concept was a dystopian, hydrogen-derived, water-powered android in search of fuel in a world where due to the irreversible planetary damage caused by humans thousands of years earlier, water is scarce. However, it not only searches for water for itself, but to complete its mission as well. The robot, dubbed Plantsy, is equipped with genetically modified seeds to withstand the new world GIVEN the correct environmental factors: the biggest being water. Due to the resilience of these rovers, as a last resort, people desperate enough to withstand the outside environment follow these rovers in hopes of it leading them to water. The original goal for our video was to convey the post apocalyptic world that created the robot to succeed in. The video sets the scene for the world the robot was created in response to.
Ideation
This robot was designed for the final project in my Human Machine Interaction course at San Jose State University. We were instructed to create a robotic system to demonstrate a commingling and hybrid approach to functioning with living things. Our robot dubbed Plantsy, is a bot which exists in a post apocalyptic future where machine needs to save humanity. Plantsy senses the environment and looks for the ideal setting to drop genetically modified seeds resilient enough to succeed in the niche environmentally viable areas of the polluted world.
Progression
Circuit Diagrams
Build
To the right is a diagram of the first Raspberry Pi Pico being utilized to manage the driving functions of the robot, along with a DRV8833 motor driver. One Lego Power Function motor is connected on each side.
This is the left is the second Raspberry Pi Pico being utilized to manage the special tasked sensors of the robot, such as the LCD, ultrasonic, humidity & temperature, and soil moisture sensors.
The hardware being placed onto the Lego chassis.
Demo of the YL-69 soil moisture sensor connected to the I2C display. The soil humidity levels are mapped to a scale from 0-100. Values below 79 are determined to be "INFERIOR." Values 80-100 are determined to have a "SUITABLE" amount of moisture to activate the compartment to drop seeds for the enviornment. Two LEDs emphasize the readings, as the red LED stays on during "INFERIOR" status and a green (yellow here) switches on for "SUPERIOR" values.
YL-69 sensor and I2C display in action, measuring the moisture of soil after rain.
Speculative Video
Plantsy in action amongst other robots.
A short film created by Jan and I to demonstrate Plantsy in action.